Courtney and I graciously accepted an offer from Drew and Michelle this weekend to help them move 10 tons of rock, literally. Every summer, it seems, either I or someone I know needs rock moved. Last year it was Chad, two years ago I did it for myself. This year was Drew’s turn. We spent the better part of Saturday morning and afternoon filling in the yard.

As much as I might complain about the back-breaking work, there’s just something that I really enjoy about gettin’ out, sweatin’ a bit, and hanging out with friends. I’m not going to lie to you, 10 tons of rock between 3 guys is hard work, but the sense of accomplishment after completing is well worth the pain.

Riles came along for the ride. He seemed to enjoy the time with Avery. For the first time Riley acknowledged Aves, smiling and grasping for him. A few more months and they’ll finally be able to play together.

Ever wondered what it’s like to live with me? Courtney details it well.

From the beginning I have been obsessed with putting my life online. I believe though, that I have found the Mecca for uber-life-connectivity: Twitter. I didn’t get Twitter for a long time. I tried it a few months ago and couldn’t figure out why I would want to use it. After the Vegas trip, though, I realized that Twitter allows me to write a “small blog” from anywhere using my cellphone. That means where ever I am, and whatever I’m doing, can be documented.

To top Twitter though is Jaiku , an aggregator of all my various online-going-ons. It will organize my online “stuff” by date, truly tracking everything I do.

So if you’re twittering, you can find me at http://www.twitter.com/brokenindu . For everything, all at once, and overflowing, check out my Jaiku feed at: http://breakdown.jaiku.com/.

I spent Easter weekend in Las Vegas with Chad, Mason and Dan. We were there to celebrate Chad’s last few months of bachelorhood. All in all, it was a very successful trip. Each and every time I go Vegas gets better and better. This time I managed to not gamble at all, which means all the money I blew was on booze and food.

I really wish I would have thought to use Twitter to log what we did. I’ll have to give you the rundown the old fashion way, from memory.

Thursday

We arrived in Vegas around 9:30, checked into the Flamingo, and started walking the strip. We had no agenda so we walked, and walked. We ended up walking from the Flamingo to the Stratophere. It was quite a hike. My feet hurt from the rest of the weekend because of it. A bonus though was seeing the Chapel of the Bells in the daylight. Other highlights of the walk included $1.99 24oz cans of Bud Light.

After the hike we sat down at a patio outside of Caesars. The weather was absolutely perfect all weekend. We had left Minneapolis when it was 17 degrees and trying to snow. The 80s of Vegas felt good. We were witness to a Vegas local pissing himself and being escorted away from the patio. 2 security guards and one cop came out of nowhere to direct this guy away.

That night we went to Gilley’s for good ol’ country music and bull riding. While I’m not a fan of the music, the crowd is always fun at Gilley’s. It didn’t disappoint this time around either.

Friday

Thursday was the most expensive day of drinking for the entire weekend for me. Which meant Friday had to be low key. We spent the day recovering from doing it up proper the night before by the pool at the Flamingo.

Friday night we went to Mandalay Bay to see the Spazmatics, and 80s cover band. The music and crowd were awesome, but without Courtney I didn’t do any dancing which was a bummer. Some other guys thought they were in a meat market instead of a concert, though, and proceeded to hit on anything that moved. I was blown away by their arrogance. I really didn’t think there were guys out there that would tail gals like these guys. They grade-A assholes.

Saturday

One thing I love about Vegas are the buffets. And you can’t go wrong with the Main St. Station buffet in Downtown Vegas. On Saturday we headed downtown to enjoy the buffet. We also stumbled upon an Indy car Grand Prix race. Well, we couldn’t really miss it because they were doing laps around Fremont Street. We stopped on a bridge to watch the cars fly by and almost were witness one of them hitting the wall.

For dinner Chad suggested we have steak. We went to a steak joint at the Imperial Palace. We were a tad underdressed (shorts and t-shirts and wreaking of booze) for the steak place. But regardless they let us in and we enjoyed a very romantic dinner between 4 dudes. Luckily there weren’t many other people in there. It got a little awkward.

After dinner we sat at a piano bar for the better part of the evening and enjoyed a little bit of a dueling pianos show. We watched a guy drop over $300 to hear the Michigan University fight song and some lousy 80s song. We ended back up at Gilley’s to polish up the night. Sawdust and Miller Light never gets old.

Sunday

By Sunday we were done drinking. We had to kill most of the day since our flight wasn’t until the evening. We spent the day by the pool again. I did manage to have the hottest Kung Pao Chicken I’ve ever had in my life at Ceasar’s food court. Once you get out of the midwest it seems the food has a bit more “flavor”.

The rides from the hotel all the way to Minneapolis were quite interesting, if not harrowing. I swear the cabbie that took us to the Vegas airport was drunk. We almost lost Mason when the cabbie pulled out in front of a speeding car. The flight home was bumpy, so bumpy as a matter of fact that the stewardesses were scared. We got tossed around a fair amount.

I did learn that Prince must be the official music of Las Vegas. I think we heard his entire music catalog over the weekend. And it just wasn’t one casino that we heard him at. Where ever we were we would eventually hear at least one Prince song. That includes when we saw the Spazmatics and the dueling pianos. Journey would be a close second after Prince.

Riley has been sick for the last 4 weeks. Court decided last week that enough was enough and hauled him into the doctor’s. He’s been in to see the doc 4 times in the last week alone. Good news is, he’s finally on the road to recovery.I believe his sickness was holding him back from progressing. For awhile Riles planed out on new features. Usually he was doing a new thing weekly. But while sick, he just sort of maintained. This week though we got more than we bargained for.

Let me run down the new features (They’re biggies too):

1. He started holding his own bottle. I didn’t know kids actually did this. It’s sort of odd though because the bottle is so disproportionate to him. I liken it to me drinking a 64oz beer. It just doesn’t look right.

2. He started falling asleep in our arms. He’s been a bear to deal with, quite high maintenance when it comes to sleep. But this week he started settling in when you hold him. He’ll actually check out if comfy enough. Makes our life much easier.

3. He started rolling over! I have been waiting for this one for a long time. I’m very excited about him moving around.

Here’s Riles immediately after the “big move”:

Followed quickly by frustration of actually being on his stomach:

So, I’m a very proud dad this week. It’s amazing to watch this child grow up.

Our credit card was stolen, again. We had a similar problem 2-3 years ago when a credit card number of ours was used online to purchase mullet-boy truck parts from a shop in Arkansas. This time, though, we had a card physically taken.

When I went to pay my card this month I noticed $240 of extra charges to places around town, Amaco, Walmart, and the likes. It concerned me because we don’t typically use our credit card for your average every day run of the mill stuff. These charges didn’t seem right. I called the credit card company and filed a fraudulent purchase claim.

Courtney mentioned last week that her work was dealing with some theft from one of their homes. Someone was using the company checkbook to buy PS3s and the like. When Courtney checked her purse this morning her credit card was missing. So chances are that the person writing bad checks is the same person with our card.

I’m not too worried about the credit card charges, that’ll get cleaned up by the system. I’m more frustrated with the feeling of being personally violated. The scary part is Courtney still has to go to work to the same place someone rummaged through her stuff. Sure, it’s not proven who did what with her card, but circumstances start to add up. I bet the person is shifty-eyed too.

People ask me for advice. It’s not that I’m some sort of intellect when it comes to making life choices, it just so happens that I am the person there at that particular moment. I’m not quite sure, though, that I’m the most appropriate person to be asking advice from. Let me give you a few examples. This is a handful of advice I’ve handed out in the last month or so. I won’t provide context of the advice because, as you will see, it doesn’t really matter.

Advice #1: Shit happens - That’s right, it happens and it happens to you

Advice #2: Deal with it - Follows #1 frequently.

Advice #3: Tough - If you feel like I may understand, I probably don’t. It would be like me asking you the best method for checking my kid’s temp. (The answer to that one is: the butt).

Advice #4: Get over it - The advice most often given to my son.

You’re probably thinking that I’m a true artist of the asshole attitude. But the fact of the matter is, I’m very black and white. If something is wrong, make it right. If it’s not broke, don’t fix it. In many situations I think there are definite right and wrong answers. People just need to be able to evaluate the decisions without letting emotion get involved.

By the way - I don’t follow my own advice. I may be asking for your help in the near future…

I just got around to digging photos off the camera and stumbled upon this winner from New Years Eve.

Tina and Courtney dressed up like their Miis

A few days after Riley was born the doctor confirmed that Riley was tongue-tied. I always thought being “tongue-tied” was a figure of speech, but I discovered it’s an actual affliction. It means that the little “thing” that connects Riley’s tongue to his bottom jaw is too close to the end of his tongue. He isn’t able to stick his tongue out of his mouth. The doctor assured us that he would be fine, as long as being tongue-tied didn’t affect his eating or speech later in life.

So, with every check up we’ve had the first thing I bring up is Rile’s tongue. It freaks me out to know already that he might have problems when he grows up. Riley was 5 days old when they first told us, It was like finding a dent in your new car. For the last 4 months he’s tried so hard to stick his tongue out. I was finally accepting the fact that I couldn’t do anything about it right now and it was best not to worry about it.

Then on Tuesday his tongue came flying out of his mouth without warning. I was stunned. We were laughing and playing like we usually do (He likes it when I say “Hello” and “LOL” to him) when his little tongue jetted just a bit out of his mouth. It’s no Gene Simmons, but it’s a step in a new direction for Riles. He had a look on his face of pride that I’d never seen before. I’ve never been so happy about something so little in my life. All week we’ve laughed and played, sticking our tongues out at each other.

I’ve been laughing for days because of this: